Nguyen Duy – Zen Poems

Widely considered the most important Vietnamese poet of his generation, Nguyen Duy began his career as a writer on the battlefields of Vietnam. He has published ten collections of poetry, three collections of memoirs, and a novel. Among his many awards the Vietnam Writers’ Association in 1985. Distant Road, Selected Poems (Curbstone Press, Nov ’99) is the first English translation of his work.

OH STONE

I stand in meditation before Ankor’s ruins,
if stone can be shattered, what of human life?

Oh stone,let me inscribe a plea for peace.

In the end, in every war,
whoever won, the people always lost.

Kampuchia, 8/1989

Nguyen Duy gave up writing to dedicate himself to the development of the book Tho Thien Ly Tran (Zen Poems from the Tran and Ly dynasties). It was published by the Saigon Cultural Publishing House in 2005. It contains 30 poems selected from thousands written by Zen masters during the Ly (1009-1225) and Tran (1225-1400) eras. His goal is the restoration of poetry, Buddhism and tradition after the war, when many Classic poems were lost. Nguyen Duy reconstructed the Classic poetry in this artist-book from engravings and hangings found in his visits to temples and communal houses. The book has been published on poonah paper, a style of paper used widely in Vietnam which is coated with white powder made from baked shell.

Tho Thien Ly Tran was compiled together with poet Nguyen Ba Chung and has English translations by American poet Kevin Bowen. It was displayed at an exhibition at Suffolk University in Boston, the US, to mark the university’s centenary. It was also exhibited at the Ho Chi Minh City Library and Hanoi’s Van Mieu (Temple of Literature) in 2005. It was presented as a gift at the UN Buddhism conference in 2008. The book was on display during the Odysseus Project Art Exhibit: The Hidden Costs of War in 2010.

Nguyen Duy was born in 1948 in Dong Ve village, Thanh Hoa province, and now lives in Ho Chi Minh City.